


Ondine

by elaine



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 09:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elaine/pseuds/elaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why is Jim afraid of deep water?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ondine

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this gorgeous drawing by Helvetica: http://helvetica4ever.livejournal.com/9381.html?#cutid1

_Blair: Would you look at that ocean? It's so raw... so primal.  
  
Jim: So deep.   
  
_The Rig  
  
  
  
He doesn't remember why it scares him so much. Why would he? He was so young, Stevie just a baby, and it was over so quickly. Clambering eagerly around the rock pools at the end of the beach, a stumble, loss of balance, and he was in the water. Nowadays it would barely reach his waist but he doesn't know that, can't put it in perspective because he doesn't remember.  
  
But he dreams about it sometimes; sees the light through the water and the seaweed fronds swaying in the current and it's fine. It's beautiful… until he breathes in and cold, stinging water fills his lungs. A shadow blots out the light. He doesn't think 'I'm dying' because a three year old doesn't understand death, but he feels terror like he's never known in his short life.  
  
Then he's out of the water, coughing and spitting, his mother's screams echoing in his ears. But he's in his father's arms, feeling his warmth and the fast beating of his heart and it's all over now.  
  
And when Jim wakes, he doesn't remember the dream; but he still feels that atavistic fear when he sees deep water.  
  
***  
  
He's floating, immersed in the sea, and it's breathtaking. Light slants down, diffused by the water into a soft blue-green radiance, and he's weightless, drifting, carried by the current. He's waiting; for what, he doesn't know.  
  
His chest tightens. He needs to breathe; he opens his mouth and water rushes into his lungs, stinging, burning. His body becomes leaden, slow, sinking deeper. It's growing colder, darker, and he stares up longingly into the light while everything else fades around him. The luminous glow, and the slow, drifting dance of the seaweed… if only he could reach the light.  
  
A figure weaves smoothly between the fronds of seaweed. He's beautiful. Elemental. Naked, his long hair wafting about his face as he glides closer. He hovers over Jim for a moment and Jim turns his face up, seeking connection. Seeking life. A hand caresses his cheek and their lips touch, and Jim can breathe.  
  
It's a strange dream, Jim thinks as he wakes slowly, reluctantly; somehow familiar and yet not. He doesn't mention it to Blair, because… well he's just not sure how he'd explain to Blair that the man who breathed life into him was… well… Blair.  
  
***  
  
 _Blair: …The doctors are trying to tell me it's some type of an endorphin rush when the body starts to shut down, but it was...  
  
Jim: The same image. I saw the same image.   
  
Blair: You had the same vision?   
  
_Sentinel Too, part two  
  
  
  
He's familiar with this now, the diffuse glow of distant light, the cool caress of the water sliding lazily against his body, the dark, seething cloud of seaweed. He knows what's coming, even in the dream. He's been here so many times; and in the waking world he's wondered about what it all means.  
  
It's called lucid dreaming. Blair told him about that. He's not afraid any more when the water rushes into his mouth and throat. He has to go through this so that Blair can come to him, can kiss life into him and touch him with gentle fingers. He welcomes the burn, the suffocating fullness of his lungs.  
  
He doesn't think, waking or dreaming, about what it means that he's willing to give up his life just to experience this moment of tenderness. Just one, fleeting moment that's over almost before he's aware of it, always waking after that first kiss.   
  
Afterwards he lies in his bed, his body aching pleasantly. Not aroused, he tells himself; it's not like  _that_. It's not sexual. It's about death and about being saved from death. He understands that now, since he pulled Blair's lifeless body out of the fountain.   
  
It's the first time he's had the dream since. He's relieved; it's been a while and he was almost afraid he wouldn't ever have this again.  
  
But for now, he's still  _in_  the dream, and he raises his face expectantly as Blair emerges from the seaweed grove and hangs, drifting slightly in the current, above him. Jim closes his eyes, his body suffused with longing, and waits for the touch on his cheek, the soft press of lips against his own.  
  
It's almost like that astonishing moment when he and Blair merged in their shared vision. Almost. Except that Jim wakes slowly, reluctantly, and lies motionless, not daring to move, to breathe, for fear of dispelling the lingering remnants of the dream too quickly.   
  
From the room below him he hears a moan, then a gasp and the sudden, shocking sound of thudding footsteps. Bare feet on the wooden floorboards, the stairs. Harsh, shaking breaths and the timpani of a pounding heart. Not his own heart, which still beats with a languid weightiness.  
  
Before he can react, before he can do anything, Blair's there, beside his bed. His hair is a wild nimbus around his face, his bare chest is heaving. Not, surely, from the run up the stairs; he's fitter than that. Jim opens his mouth, trying to find words but none come to him – the dream still has him in its thrall.  
  
The covers lift and Blair slips in beside him, moves to straddle his body and suddenly Jim's back in the dream. Only this time it's static electricity that makes Blair's hair float around his face, it's the moon shining through a fine layer of cloud overhead that makes a muted halo around Blair's head.   
  
Nonetheless, Jim's trapped in his dream. He closes his eyes and feels Blair's hand, icy, trembling, on his cheek. He parts his lips and Blair's press against them. He doesn't wake.  
  
It's not a dream this time. He pushes back, his tongue flickering over Blair's lips and now he can actually  _taste_  Blair. Between their bodies he feels the tickle of soft, coarse hair and the growing fullness of Blair's cock. As if waiting for some kind of permission, his own cock swells, grows hard; and Blair moans into his mouth.  
  
It's the only sound either of them make, apart from the inevitable choke and hitch of their breathing as they rub and bump languidly together. No finesse, no thought, just this necessary friction as Blair undulates slowly against him and Jim arches up against him, awkward, captive to a need too long denied.  
  
Blair comes against him with a broken sound, but Jim is silent. They lie, legs entwined, bodies limp and heavy. Blair's breath is hot and moist against Jim's throat.  
  
He's honestly bewildered by this. He's lived with his dream for so long, and it had never occurred to him to want Blair this way. Now that it has, he's okay with it; more than okay, actually. In fact it's hard to believe he could ever  _not_  have wanted it. Wanted Blair.  
  
“I saw you, Jim” Blair's voice, barely a murmur, is still hoarse and strained, “I saw you in the water… you were drowning and I saw myself there with you, bringing you back. It was like the vision, man.”  
  
He sounds frightened, shocked. Jim tightens his arms around Blair and kisses his temple through the damp strands of hair. “It's okay. We're here, right? It was just a dream.” And some day they'll talk about how he and Blair could share the same dream. But not now.  
  
Blair shudders and lies still a moment longer. Then his body tenses a little, preparing to move. That's not what Jim wants. He's got Blair here now; he wants him to stay, wants to keep this intimacy. He whispers “Stay,” and Blair subsides. Soon he's snoring, perfectly relaxed, still sprawled on top of Jim.  
  
***  
  
He doesn't have the dream again, at least not that he remembers. He guesses it's because he doesn't need it any more. Sometimes he misses it, but his life now that Blair's in his bed is better than any dream and he's satisfied.   
  
He's still afraid of deep water, though.  
  



End file.
